Part forming processes, such as incremental sheet forming (ISF), may be used to manufacture parts, such as contoured parts, including new parts, replacement parts, and spare parts, for vehicles, such as aircraft. ISF is a sheet metal forming process that uses a forming tool to deform sheet metal along a predefined tool path, to impart the sheet metal with a desired shape, such as a three-dimensional shape. ISF tooling may be used with a computer numerical control (CNC) machine or another suitable machine or system to form the sheet metal into the desired shape for the part.
ISF is typically achieved by using a fixed or constant distance between Z-level tool paths. This approach may be suitable for a fixed or constant wall angle part but may result in an uneven step-across when there are different wall angles on the same part. For example, a fixed or constant stepdown may be too large for steep slopes, or may be too small for shallow slopes, and this may result in formed parts with surface imperfections, such as ridges or blemishes. This may, in turn, require additional surface treatment processes to remove or reduce the surface imperfections. Such additional surface treatment processes may increase the overall time and expense of the part manufacturing, or may result in a part that does not meet the design specification.
In addition, ISF may use known CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) software for part forming. Such known CAM software allows for tool path features and tools which are based around the machining process, where material is removed to sculpt a part out of a solid block of material. However, such tool path features and tools do not allow for a wall angle sensitive stepdown, in combination with Z level (contour type) tool paths.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for methods and systems for generating tool paths for part forming manufacturing, such as incremental sheet forming (ISF) manufacturing, of parts, that result in formed parts with decreased surface imperfections, improved shape definition, improved quality, reduced need for additional surface treatment processes, and that provide significant advantages over known methods and systems.